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Board doesn’t yet support heics. Can convert them to jpg. Note to self: check on status of this. edit: no plans for support. Only Safari renders them. Other browsers do not. So it’s not a forum thing, it’s Apple doing their thing. best I could do is have the board auto convert them to jpg on upload or something, but that isn’t happening anytime soon.

Disclaimer: if you're looking for beta, you'll probably be disappointed by this TR. If youre looking for an emo introspection on soloing, then perhaps you’ll be amused… I awoke without an alarm on Tuesday morning. I stumbled around and gathered my things. Two skinny 30m cords, ice tools, crampons, one ice screw, 2 carabiners, some snacks.. I loaded my pack and headed up to the pass around 8am. I left from a nearly vacant lot at 8:40; not exactly an alpine start. But with freezing levels down to 500ft and clouds in the forecast, I wasn’t too worried about timing. I skinned up the thinnest approach to Source Lake I have ever seen in February, my skis sliding out from under more than I would’ve liked. My normal skins for these skis are having glue issues, so I used 77mm skins on my 95mm skis, not ideal.. As I skinned, I thought back to the last time I attempted this route, which was 9 years prior with my college girlfriend. We drove down from Bellingham and accidentally climbed a full pitch up Bryant Peak before realizing that we were climbing the wrong mountain. Hopefully today will go a bit better, I thought to myself. As I skinned through the valley, the morning fog lay like a wet blanket. Cold, wet, quiet. I skinned up from Source Lake; there was about an inch of snow in the skinner, which made the skinning a bit nicer than the ice down low. I caught a glimpse of Chair through the trees as I crested above the fog. Dang it. Looks like no ice on the upper pitch. Oh well, maybe it wasnt meant to be. I can still take a look at the North Face, or maybe climb the lower pitches of the NE Butt, then bail. I passed a few other skiers. I was actually enjoying being alone with my thoughts, so I moved quickly, eager to get back to some silence. I finally got up into the sun and was fully free of the fog. I felt the humidity drop and my sweat start to dry, one of the best feelings. The feeling was short-lived. I booted up the thumb tack to the ridge where clouds had again blown in and brought light snow. Above the fog... View of the route. I meandered along the ridge and finally got a view of the North Face, no good, no ice, just snow on rock. Not today. I ended up at the base of the NE Buttress of Chair without even really stopping to consider if and why. I looked up, and the rocks above had a smear of ice that looked fun to climb. As I transitioned from skinning to climbing, I briefly pondered my options and how I was feeling. Soloing requires confidence. But too much confidence will get anyone into trouble. It's a delicate balancing act. Today, I had the confidence. I started up. The ice was thin. Ranging from a quarter inch to 2 inches in “fat” spots. The movement of climbing sub-vertical ice and rock is addictive. Delicate taps with the tools, finding edges for the crampon mono points, ice and rock, perfectly mixed. Nothing feels better than flowing through that terrain. Soon enough, I had “flowed” my way into a pickle. I looked up and realized I had blown past a ramp to the left I should have taken. Above was vertical rock that I had no business touching, so I awkwardly scraped my way down a bit and transitioned left over the ridge. I was not psyched about this little blunder. The downclimb had some scary moves that I did not enjoy. I contemplated bailing. Confidence gone. I knew the upper pitch wasn't in any way, what's the point? This is all so contrived… The thin climbing right off the bat, not much ice but it was good. I continued moving upward through ice and rock and got back into the flow on this slightly easier terrain. The ice was mostly an eggshell over powder on rock. The movement was a 50/50 split between scraping tools or ‘pons looking for a positive edge out of sight beneath the snow, or gentle sticks in snice. I topped out the lower pitch feeling good. I looked up at the upper “ice” pitch with no ice, and I looked at the trees to my right that I could rap down and be done. Oh well, I’ll just keep going up. I’m curious if this middle snow slope is skiable anyway. Eggshell ice over rock. Looking up at the "ice" pitch on the right and the ramp I took (but would not recommend) on the left. I booted up the snow slope, moving quickly. Only a few inches of boot pen made for efficient movement. As I approached the upper step, I considered taking the plum line that had a few ice smears, or traversing out left to what appeared to be lower-angle snow and rock. At this point, I felt like I was way off the deck and had already made one mistake, so I took what I perceived to be the easy option to the left. I climbed out of the steep snow into the steeper rock and quickly regretted my decision. No ice, very few positive edges, not ideal. I scraped my way up it, crampons skittering on smooth rock; it felt a bit harrowing. There was one lone tree at the top of these rocks, and when I finally grabbed a branch, I breathed a sigh of relief. I pulled myself up over the tree and booted to the top, relieved to be done with the climb. I wandered around the top, went to the true summit, and looked for my descent. Nothing looked like the photos I had looked at. Eventually, I found the correct gully based on a dead tree at the top, which I recognized from a photo. The correct gully was a little bit back down the climbing route from the summit(s). The descent gully was nearly dry, and I face-in down-climbed down nearly the whole thing. It was slow and tedious, and a few spots felt about as thoughtful as the route up, except there were a few smears of solid ice yielding good sticks in this gully, unlike most of the route up. I got down to the rap station and joined my 2 30m cords for a 30m rap. I finished the rap and thought that what I had just rapped seemed a lot easier to down climb than what I had down climbed to get to the rap anchor… Up the final slope. Looking down the descent gully. A slow transition at the bottom of the descent gully ensued. Coil ropes, harness off, crampons off, skins off, skis on, boots locked, finally ready to ski. The ski down yielded a few good turns. Hop turns up high with dust on crust and rather flat light. Down lower, the snow got softer and deeper, and the light improved. A few good turns later, I was into the skied-out refrozen debris over Source Lake. I boogied down that and enjoyed the icy luge back to the car. C2C was 4:20. Would be fun to try to go fast in better conditions! A few nice turns on the exit. A few parting thoughts. I really wanted to do some technical climbing and forced it a bit. The solo headspace pendulum of caution vs confidence was a bit tilted toward confidence today. We shall recalibrate a bit moving forward and try to find the elusive balance. This route probably needs more freeze-thaw after getting baked in the hot sun for weeks. It sure does have a lot of south for being the supposed “NE” Butt.

Polish was almost fully formed when I was skiing up there in November. I reckon it's in great shape if you can get up there. Can always ski up via the Easton and leave skis at the col to grab on the way down. Sled necks groom the first few miles of the trail.

TL;DR - It's forecasted to snow continuously for the foreseeable future, so unless you're coming here to ski, I recommend staying home or going elsewhere. The gist of the season so far is that north faces above 6,500ft are in great shape. Everything below that is out or unreliable. Access is hard because so many roads washed out in the storm, Cascade River Road somehow being the exception. Dragontail and most other routes in the Enchantments are notably NOT in this season. The north side of Stuart is however in great shape. Before it started snowing again, The NE ice couloir on Eldorado was reportedly in phenomenal condition. All of this is dependent on a warm dry spell leading into a cold high pressure system allowing for the snowpack to solidify. If you don't see this, it's not worth it.

Looks like the weather is getting active so hard to say if you'll find anything to do on a big peak in 10 days. I'd bring skis, just in case, and check back in next week.

Hello, Utah based climber here looking to make a trip to a volcano for a winter ascent of some ice and rock route. Can anyone suggest something that might be in right now that has WI3 or steeper ice. I am not familiar with the current conditions out there but am aware your winter like ours has been very warm with little precip (seem good for alpine ice). For example I was looking at dragontail peak and the triple colouirs route with the thought that it might be in early, but have no idea. The current summit temp is in the negatives so perhaps not. Any ideas? Thanks, Nick 5039871358

$750 plus shipping from 99508. Never worn outside. New with tags. Get them now and train for AK season! jakegano@gmail.com

Sent you a PM.

It's basement cleanout time, and with my "hardman" days a thing of the past, I have ropes to repurpose. (Don't you just hate that verb?) Yeah, I've read about the standard solutions; rope mats, dog leashes, etc. Any other brilliant suggestions, or does anyone want to adopt one of these? They are old, 10+ years, but generally have very low use and have been stored in ideal conditions; away from chemicals/corrosives, cool, dark, moderate humidity. But still, maybe not what you'd want to trust with your life. From Lt to Rt: Oldest of the batch, a 9mm scrambler's 30m twin rope Pull cord, 5mm I believe, 70m+ length. I got this to go with the Duodess and used it maybe once. It would still be fine for a lifetime's worth of high-vis tat! Mammut Duodess 10mm (?) x 70m. Awesome rope, very little use. Set of Mammut half ropes; 9mm x 60m. Mostly used for ice climbing, no known issues.

Yeah, it was cool to see you out there Joseph! We ran into some spooky wind slabs right below the ice cliff and bailed early on, got to climb some of the water ice lower in the valley though. Didn't see any gear, sorry dude! We lost your booter on the way up and the way back lol.

Shoot; missed that one. Thx Jason

The Glacier Creek road is washed out way low....like fully gone just above the bridge. I don't think hardly anyone is going up there these days.

Conor! It was nice running into you on your approach towards Stuart, how did your climb go? NE Face was looking filled in quite nicely. Also if you found some brooks running shoes and multiple ski straps, lmk lol

Anyone been up there lately; how's it looking?

Hi all, beginner mountain climber here really into mountaineering. Looking to climb mt hood some time this spring and would like to go with an experienced lead on the trip. Anyone climbing some time in April or May and willing to have me tag along?

Just imagine if you could zoom into the full res originals on a good monitor! The new camera and glass that I splurged on this winter has been a bit of a revelation. I should have done this glass upgrade 20 years ago but it took that long to wear down the Finance Minister!

Holy `@#%@#$!` the detail in these pictures is freaking amazing.

Not really desired to post up eBay auctions, we would prefer it being offered just to our community then if it doesn’t sell put it on eBay. This is just to prevent non-community members from spamming us with their auctions to drive up bidding. we want this to be a place where people interact meaningfully rather than as a spam dumping ground. since it’s already here you can leave it but that’s the message. I can see you’re not just a spam account.

Thinning out my unused gear pile. Not sure if this allowed. https://ebay.us/m/T1MocB Auction starting at $9.99, Buy it now $29. New in package, not even tried on. Has always been stored in cool, dry conditions. Bought multiple sizes hoping that one of them will fit & of course I didn’t return this in time. Marketed for women, but it’s really unisex. **Go with measurements, not marketing** This is genuinely an all-purpose harness, in my personal experience. Product Info for Black Diamond Primrose Harness LARGE Waist: 84-91 cm / 33-36 inches ….. Legs: 61-71 cm / 24-28 inches For all-around climbers who know that time spent fiddling with leg loops and adjusting a pinching waist belt is time wasted, the Black Diamond Primrose delivers a time-saving design for all styles of climbing. A pre-threaded Speed Adjust waistbelt buckle saves time and eliminates error when tying in, while Dual Core Construction puts an emphasis on comfort, even when you're posted up at a hanging belay. TrakFIT leg-loops easily adjust for cool fall days at the crag or blazing summer days on long multi-pitches, and four pressure-molded gear loops and a haul loop make this Black Diamond's most popular all-rounder. Features of Black Diamond Primrose Harness: Pre-threaded Speed Adjust waistbelt buckle Bullhorn-shaped waistbelt built using Dual Core Construction Patent-pending trakFIT adjustment for easy leg loop customization Adjustable rear elastic riser Four pressure-molded gear loops Haul loop WEIGHT (G) 410 g GEAR LOOPS 4 Gear loops ICE CLIP SLOTS No, 0 BELAY / TIE-IN One Loop WAIST BUCKLE TYPE Manual Doubleback LEG BUCKLE TYPE Quick Adjust DROP SEAT Yes HAUL LOOP Yes (12kN) SIZE Waist: 84-91 cm / 33.1-35.8 in Legs: 61-71 cm / 24-28 in

Thanks for the kind words @Murray! I was just talking with some folks about this idea last week and the thing I always struggle with is how to organize a book....or what people would like to see. I can look at whatever of these image I want, whenever, and since images are so personal I often wonder if my idea for a good book wouldn't be YOUR idea for a good book on the North Cascades. Maybe that is the ticket....start a thread to crowdsource ideas and approach...... Even if @John_Scurlock told me once, "You want to know the way to make a small fortune in Photography? Start with a large fortune!"

@Michael Telstad Did you get a look at any ice to the right of Girth Pillar up the NE face?

@JasonG I've seen a lot of pictures of the Cascades in my life but these might be some of the best. I would probably be interested in a book if one was made. A skier from Tacoma named Thatcher made a book of his images that turned out really well, he may have some advice.

This is rad!

That’s because Rainier is pretty easy.

Hey everyone, I'm looking for 1-2 people who are interested in doing the Disappointment Cleaver Route in mid to late August of 2026. My technical experience is mostly in the snow fields of the Presidential Range as well as the Glaciers in the Swiss Alps. For fitness reference, last week my friends and I completed a one day Winter Presidential traverse which is 19 miles and 8300 feet in about 13 hours. I'm hoping to make a Rainier ascent this summer and am looking for anyone who might be interested in joining? I'd be pretty happy to attempt a 1, 2 or 3 day summit depending on preference. Please feel free to reach out at samjudahunger@gmail.com.